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SFNA General Meeting
Wednesday, May 10, 6:30pm-7:30pm
Sherwood Forest ARP Church

If you have an issue you would like discussed at the meeting please let us know! A full agenda will be available on the website.

The meeting will also be available on Zoom.

Draft minutes from the 1st quarter general meeting…

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SFNA Adopt-A-Highway Clean Up
Saturday, May 20, 9:30-11am

Volunteers are invited to participate in the cleanup which is part of the Keep The Midlands Beautiful Adopt-A-Highway program. Meet at the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. Volunteers should wear closed toed shoes and bring your own gloves. Pickers and trash bags are provided.

Contact Dave Nelson at 803-447-4793 or appearance@sherwoodforestneighbors.org for more information.

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Buy Nothing Friends Launched!
Thanks to coaching from Bill Fairchild, our Zone 7 & 8 Block Captain, we are now ready to invite all residents to download the Buy Nothing app and join in this wildly popular national project phenomena. When joining, be sure to identify Sherwood Forest as your neighborhood.

Buy Nothing offers people a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude through a worldwide network of gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people who are real-life neighbors.
– Buy Nothing website…

Also, for more fun check out Bill’s FB group: Buy Nothing Sherwood Forest…

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USC Belser Arboretum Open House
Sunday, May 21, 1-4pm

Join the Arboretum Book Club as we read Upstream by Mary Oliver, selected by Nicola Waldron of USC’s Department of English Language and Literature. She’ll guide our discussion at 3pm.
Eventbrite tickets…
Facebook event…

Open House is always the 3rd Sunday of every month. Open for walkers and volunteers Wednesday and Saturday 10am-noon, Thursdays from 3pm-7pm.

Follow the Arboretum on Instagram and see Facebook for event info.

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Forest Friends
To Mow or Not to Mow
You may have heard some of the buzz about No Mow May, which encourages homeowners with lawns to eliminate or reduce lawn mowing in the month of May to allow flowering plants in your grass to bloom to help support pollinators in the spring when sources of pollen are limited. Try it if you like, but an even better approach (for many reasons) is to begin to replace some of your turf with understory plants, and open pollinator gardens.

Understory plants are the small trees (like dogwoods) that love to live in the dappled shade of larger trees (the upper story), as well as native shrubs and perennials that thrive with a bit of shade.

If you have an open, sunny lawn, try adding a rain garden, a regular pollinator garden full of native perennials, or a sunny border garden full of native grasses and other plants. Taking these latter approaches can provide almost year round sources of pollen, seeds and berries for wildlife, while at the same time helping to improve absorption of rainwater, and reduce the pollution and chemicals needed to maintain a lawn.

This approach also allows you to maintain a tidy lawn where you really want some lawn, albeit a somewhat smaller lawn (phew! less mowing!).

Some links about alternatives to large lawns, and native plants to use instead:
How and why to reduce the area you mow – bit by bit…
Great resources from Clemson for creating rain gardens…
National Wildlife Federation plant finder for 29205 zip code…
SC Wildflower collections…

Email Valerie Marcil at forestfriends@sherwoodforestneighbors.org with questions.

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Join the Sherwood Forest Neighborhood Association

Become a member or renew your membership now for 2023!

The SFNA is a volunteer organization of neighbors working to create a greater sense of community in the Forest.

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